


A Comforting Lie or the Painful Truth?

by danceswithhamsters01



Series: Reddit Prompts [90]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Deep Roads (Dragon Age), Dragon Age: Origins quest - A Mother's Hope, F/M, Gen, No Clearly Good Answers Here, POV Zevran Arainai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01
Summary: Based on a prompt from r/dragonagePrompt 1: Frozen steel, bootless, Grey Wardens arriveSevarra Amell and company are in the Deep Roads, searching for the elusive Paragon Branka. Along the way, they find a certain someone one Widow Filda asked them to search for.
Relationships: Female Amell/Zevran Arainai
Series: Reddit Prompts [90]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1153856
Kudos: 4





	A Comforting Lie or the Painful Truth?

His steel weapons radiated biting cold, almost making the hilts painful to touch. Sliding the pair of daggers into the sheaths on his back and hissing a curse against the cold under his breath, he turned his gaze toward the source of the icy biting energy. She was taking deep breaths and leaning heavily on her staff, her breath coming out in puffs of fog. The eerie blue glow had left her and Alistair’s eyes. The taller Warden was busily trying to pry his sword free of the skull of their most recent kill: an ogre.

Taking great care to catch her gaze and not surprise her, Zevran placed a light hand on the mage’s shoulder. “The massive creature is dead. I suspect we can take a moment to gather our bearings, yes?”

She blinked once, twice, three times, as if finally coming back to herself. The puffs of fog tapered off and he could feel the weapons at his back beginning to adjust to the ambient temperature. It seemed that she’d finally stopped channeling the magic that enchanted the party’s weapons with unnatural coldness during the battle. Her silver gaze flicked over to the dead ogre, Alistair letting loose a grunt before his weapon finally came free of the monster’s skull. “So it is,” she said carefully.

Zevran retreated a couple of paces away, both to give Sevarra room and as a precaution. The ogre had sneaked up on them while he’d been in the midst of telling the mage a joke. Her rapidly spinning around and chanting a spell while her eyes had begun glowing a sickly shade of blue had been… unnerving. Not only that, but it had happened more than a few times. Considering that they were in the Deep Roads, on a wild goose chase after a Paragon that may or may not be still living, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Darkspawn and Grey Wardens were mortal enemies, after all.

A voice called out from their right, thick with agitation. “There’s nothing for you here! It’s mine! I’ve claimed it!”

The quintet of explorers turned as one toward the side cave. Zevran narrowed his eyes. A hunched over dwarf with scraggly hair, a mad glint in his eyes – and no boots? What kind of madman crawled the Deep Roads with no boots? – stood defiantly, leaning on a spear that’d seen better days.

“Are you part of the clan that lived here?” Sevarra asked.

“The clan? No. But.. it is still mine! Ruck’s been here for years now, and no shiny surfacer will take him away! Begone, you! You’ll bring the dark one’s back, you will! They’ll crunch your bones!” With that, the mad dwarf turned and scurried away.

After fighting off yet more giant spiders, which had made the mage whine after wiping spider gore off her face, they wandered down the tunnel “Ruck” had gone through. They were eventually met with a more or less rounded room with a campfire and several sconces alight. The dwarf who called himself Ruck stood by the fire, glowering. After meeting the rest of the party’s gaze, Sevarra cautiously drew closer to him.

“Go away! This is mine! Only I gets to plunder its riches!”

“Hullo! Hi! Excuse me, can you tell me something? Was this Branka’s campsite?”

“It’s mine, I’m the one who found it! I drove away the crawlers, I did! It’s mine now!”

She pursed her lips and tried again. “I’m not here to steal anything, I promise.”

Zevran arched a brow but remained silent. Whatever “treasures” were there very likely were only precious to this maddened dwarf and not worth the effort of digging through the piles of cobweb-encrusted debris to search for them. Some piles were stacked higher than the person who called that particular cave home.

Ruck tilted his head to the side and swayed. He babbled something about pretty hair and eyes and about blue lights that glowed beneath the lakes. At least the madman’s spear stayed where it was, leaning against a worn bench that had a threadbare blanket folded on top of it.

“I just want to talk, I won’t take anything,” she affirmed. As if taking a measure to calm the man further, she moved her staff from her left hand to rest on the loop between her shoulder blades. “I met a woman in Orzammar who was looking for her son. Her name was Filda. Do you know her?”

 _W_ _ell, that was apparently the wrong thing to say_ , the assassin thought to himself. _Also, incredibly lucky. What were the odds of actually finding the unfortunate sod in the many, many miles of passages that snaked away from Orzammar?_ Ruck began screaming “no” over and over, ranting that he didn’t deserve good memories.

After blinking several times in bemusement, the mage pressed on. “How did you end up here, then?”

As best as could be deciphered, out came a tale about leaving with an expedition to serve as a smith to repair weapons and armor, a disagreement, and then someone ending up dead. In a bid to flee punishment, he’d exiled himself to the Deep Roads rather than face judgment in the city.

“Once you eat… once you takes in the darkness… you not miss the light so much. You know, do you not? Ruck sees, yes. He sees the darkness inside you.”

Her brows furrowed, a stormy expression in her eyes. She closed them with a sigh. “I am a Grey Warden. It’s not the same. At any rate, your mother needs to know that you’re alive.”

“NO! No, she cannot! She remembers a little boy, with bright eyes and a hammer. SHE CANNOT SEE THIS! Swear, promise, vow you won’t tell!” he cried.

“But… she misses you. Do… do you want her to think you’re dead?” she asked softly.

“Yes! Yes. Tell the mother that Ruck is dead and that she should never look again.”

“Are you entirely certain? Don’t you want to--”

“The mother cannot see this! Ruck does not want to hurt her. Let her keep the memories of the boy with bright eyes and not… this,” the dwarf pleaded.

Sevarra frowned. “Very well. I’ll tell her that we found only bones.”

“Pretty lady is like Mother, yes. Too good, too pretty for the darkness.”

As they turned away and made their way out of Ruck’s abode, Zevran caught up with the mage and spoke softly into her ear. “Why not put the creature out of his misery? One can hardly call his existence any sort of life worth living, no? Say the word and I would make it quick; he would not suffer.”

She shook her head, making the long braid she wore sway between her shoulder blades. “I’m fairly certain that I am not the only person to know what it feels like to have no choice, to have no say in what happens to oneself.” She caught his gaze. “He made a choice. I’ll not take that from him.”

After discreetly peeking over his shoulder at Leliana, Alistair, and Oghren walking many paces behind them and out of earshot, he continued. “So you would lie to this Filda about her son?”

“It’s what he wants,” she answered. “If nothing else, I know I’d lose less sleep lying to her instead of killing her son. Granted, neither option feels great. You saw him with your own eyes. He’s very ill. He’s gone mad. He… won’t have much time left.”

They continued walking on, side-stepping the remains of the ogre they’d dispatched earlier. After a bit of thought, she spoke in a hushed tone. “No matter what choice he or any of us makes, he dies. If he were taken to the city, they’d learn of his crime and either execute or exile him. Dead. Even if he were pardoned, he’ll die. He’s ill, and if he’s around other people, he could potentially spread it in a fit of madness before he dies. Leaving him in the lair he’s carved out for himself, he’ll still die. Either the illness will overcome him, or one of the many creatures that call these caverns home will end him. Why take what time he has left away from him?”

She turned her face and cast her gaze to the ground. “I have too much blood on my hands, as is. I’m not eager to add more.”


End file.
